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Abi, 26, said: “We had been planning the wedding for about 12 months. We chose to get married in Turkey because we have holidayed there for a few years. We really like it there. It’s a beautiful place.

“We hadn’t seen the venue before we got married. We had seen photographs and when we got out there it was beautiful, really lovely scenery.

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The couple and their two children had enjoyed family holidays to Turkey in the past and been looking forward to returning to the “beautiful” place.

But when they got back to the Suncity Hotel and Beach Club in Oludeniz they started to wish they were back home.

“We went back to the hotel to have a meal,” said Abi. "It was rubbish service and the food wasn’t good. The service was all over the place as well, people were getting served when others had already finished.

“The hotel said that there would be no charge, but then we were handed the bill.

“Our best man said that he would go and deal with it for us. Then the next thing we knew he was being man-handled by some of the staff back into the reception. It was upsetting all of the children. It was really horrible.”

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But a discovery in the mini-fridge in the room was where the couple drew the line.

“The day after, we found a rat in the fridge,” said Abi. “We had heard a banging coming from the fridge and when we went to see what it was, we found the rat in there.

“We just thought ‘that’s it, this is getting ridiculous now’. We videoed it and went down to reception. We showed the staff and they sent someone up to deal with it but when we had opened the fridge it had got out. One staff member laughed when he saw the video.

“My father-in-law went to speak to the manager and made them switch our room. If he hadn’t have done that I don’t know whether they would have done anything else about it.”

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The rat can be seen crawling around the small fridge in the video above and what looks to be droppings can also be seen in the bottom of the fridge.

The entire trip left the couple upset on what they were hoping would be “the most prefect day of our lives”.

They complained to Thomson, which had organised the holiday, but it took more than three months for them to be offered an apology and a refund for their nightmare trip.

Abi said: “We made a complaint to the hotel while we were there and to the Thomson rep. But while we were having to deal with that our family had to watch our kids for us. It was a rare family holiday for all of us and it just wasn’t very nice in the end for anyone.

“When we came home we made a thorough complaint. The hotel offered us one more week either this year or next year. But when you add in the flights and transfers you’re still looking at quite a lot of money. Plus, as I said at the time, why would we want to go back there?

“We were dealing with complaints and back and forth for three months and then we were told that there wasn’t much else they could do.

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“Thomson have now finally apologised three months later and given us a full refund but it shouldn’t have taken this long and this much stress.

“It should have been the most perfect day of our lives and it just wasn’t. We felt like we were on the holiday from hell. We have terrible memories of it really.”

A Thomson spokesperson said: "We would like to apologise to Mr and Mrs Thornton for their experience, especially when it was for such a special occasion. We would like to thank the customers for bringing this to our attention and we are investigating the matter fully.

"We are in direct contact with the customers to apologise and successfully resolve the matter.

We’d like to reassure customers that we regularly audit all of the hotels we feature in respect of health and safety, including hygiene."

Abi said she wanted to share the story to raise awareness with others.

“We do want to make people aware," she added. "It’s not acceptable. It took us three months and we had to go to the radio before we finally got an apology.